Long ago ... and yet, from a cosmic perspective, fairly recently ... there was a goddess known as Athena, and a god known as Zeus. They were cousins, and they were married. And theirs was a fairly happy marriage, despite the wandering eye of Zeus, except for one problem. Sometime before this, when Zeus had thrown down his father, who had been known as Zeus before he became Cronus, that latter had prophesied that, just as he had thrown down his own father, so too would the current Zeus be thrown down by his own son, mightier than he. And this word was confirmed by the great mother of all the gods, who was no better pleased with the current Zeus than she had been with his father or grandfather. So that prophecy warned them that they could never have children ... and yet they very much wanted children.

And this is the point in the story where a modern reader might ask 'why'? That question is the invisible gulf that separates the modern mind from the minds of those who first told these stories. Just as a skeptical reader looking at the first few chapters of the book of Genesis wonders where the wives of the children of Adam came from, so too do even older stories hang on even older assumptions that we no longer share. We wonder, why would an immortal want children, if they have no need for heirs -- and in this case, a decided fear of the possibility of heirs!

Another part of the problem is that we have the idea of gods as eternal beings, eternal presences -- even though the very story above indicates that they can rise and fall. The truth of the Olympian gods is that while they are immortal and undying, they are also driven by the same biological urges that most animals are. And one of those urges is the urge to have offspring, even if the mind might know that it is a bad idea.

The goddess, known for her wise counsel, determined that there was a way to ensure that the prophecy could be defied. But it would require a great sacrifice from her. Her husband balked at it when she told him what was necessary, and yet in the end, moved by her counsel, he did what she told him to do -- and consumed her mind and energy into himself. (Hesiod, told this story by the muses, couldn't quite understand what he was being told, and so made up the tale of the shapeshifting contest where the goddess of wise counsel, Metis, is swallowed in But tfly form by Zeus.)

Within him, not digested or incorporated as one might expect, the goddess was able to guide Zeus more directly. If it is true that he became a better ruler as time passed, where his forefathers had grown more tyrannical, then it is likely because he had wise counsel within him as well as without. But that had not been the point of the exercise, from the goddess' perspective. Within him, she was able to study his essence more directly, and change it in subtle ways, so that his male children would not, in fact, become mightier than he. And she was also able to combine her essence with his in intriguing ways.

The result of that was the birth of a daughter, born from Zeus' mind (imagined as emerging from his head) and given her mother's name, Athena. She did many great things, and inspired many other great things, and yet she was never to have children of her own. Thus, the Greeks envisioned her as a perpetual virgin. She found that funny, but that is not part of the story we are telling, for her mother was not yet done with her plan to undo prophecy.

Her mother could be said to be a goddess of wise counsel. The younger Athena was a goddess of battle wisdom and keen judgement. These were the whole of wisdom in the times they existed, and yet they were both dimly aware that there was another kind of wisdom, though they didn't truly understand what it could be. It would not be until after the gods had begun to simply watch the world, rather than interfere with it, that the goddess within Zeus began to hear the first arguments of the philosophers, trying to decide how best to live one's life, that she understood what that other wisdom might be.

She began to combine her essence with Zeus' again, even more slowly and deliberately, taking nearly a millenium, recording in the child-goddess' mind all the discussions and theorizing of the philosophers, and giving her the tools to go beyond them. She took almost too long, for Gotterdammerung was upon the bods by the time she was ready, and Zeus was fighting the final battle of his life, aided by Hermes and Athena. Athena fell in that battle, and with no time to mourn, the elder goddess copied all her first daughter's memories into the mind of her second daughter. Then, at the last possible moment, as Zeus and the monster god of the Xothics destroyed each other, the goddess released her daughter into the world, making her materialize at the edge of the explosion.

Her daughter believed that she was Athena, and why not, for she had all of Athena's memories, didn't she? Yet something felt just a bit off about all of it, and so she took the name Minerva, one of Athena's aliases. Among the other Olympians, this secret is known only to Aphrodite, who learned by reading a stolen page of the Source Book she found in the halls of a demon king, and to Hestia, who learned it from the Sacred Fire ... and who was also told by Hermes, who survived this final battle but abandoned his name to go wandering through the cosmos.

And not even they know if Minerva's recent mortality is another part of her mother's plan, or if she has succeeded in making the gods free of prophecy, even her own.

* Lor-Van's year is about 1.1 times as long as Earth's year. This is the standard year throughout the Lor Republic and the Stellar Imperium. (Magna-Lor's revolutionary period was deliberately altered to match Lor-Van's in order to make the year work out. Zultas' year is about twice the length of Earth's year.) All references to years in what follows are Lor years.

* A Lor citizen's education began when they're around 5 years old and continued for 10 years. This was what's referred to grammar school in these writings. It was free for all citizens, publicly supported, and there was no such thing as a private school. (On the other hand, there were and are plenty of tutors that cater to the families of the wealthy to supplement their childrens' education.) Grammar school was very much about education, not socialization -- there were no recesses, lunch breaks wre very brief.

* The biggest down side to the grammar school system was that it was designed for the Lor, by the Lor, and didn't care whether a given citizen is mature enough to begin schooling at age 5 or will be considered a young adult at age 15. Plenty of species within the republic age more slowly or more quickly than that.

* After completing grammar school, Lor young adults could either enter the work force -- and find low-paying, low-respect jobs that are maybe one step up from debt-slavery, and probably lead directly to that if one doesn't live within one's means -- or continue on to an academy, if they could afford it. The concept of the "scholarship student" doesn't exist in Lor culture. If someone aces their admissions tests but can't afford an academy's, they are just out of luck.

* Enlisting in the military is probably the least bad option for Lor who can't afford an academy education. The pay is awful, work conditions are worse, and your life is always on the line. But there is a chance -- roughly a billion to one shot -- that you might get recognized for your work and promoted to a somewhat better standard of living. However, the concept of "battlefield commissions" doesn't exist in Lor culture. If you're an enlisted, you're never going to be an officer.

* Academy training lasts four to six years, and inevitably results in someone entering the work force at a reasonable standard of living, with a good chance to rise even higher. (Or almost inevitably; it is easier to get killed in an academy than to fail to find employment, as the reputation of the academy is on the line.) There are military academies, security academies, technological academies, and even entertainment academies. (Outside of history, which is treated as a technological discipline, there is no concept of "the liberal arts". Language education is handled entirely in grammar school.)

* So how have things changed since the start of the Stellar Imperium? First big change -- the Stellar Imperium no longer supports grammar schools. Some of the richer planetary governments have managed to keep some of their schools going, but other worlds have been left more or less in the dirt. This is causing all sorts of problems, the worst of which is rising crime rates. This is answered by harsher punishments for criminals, most notably enslavement. This may be the point.

* Over the past three years, some academies have established 'associated grammar schools' where children basically get trained for ten years with all they need to know in order to pass the admission test for the academy. The fees for this education are generally much less than what the academy requires, so it may become a substitute for the old system depending on how well the students of these schools do when they're ready to graduate. Private tutors are doing even better business than they used to.

* On the other hand, the concept of an enlistee earning a military commission has long been part of Zultasian culture, and most of the Zultasian leaders of the Stellar Imperium's military have absorbed the Star-Khan's meritocratic attitude (or, more accurately, indifference to the identity of the one serving him as long as they're doing it well). Lor who rise under the patronage of the conquerors are viewed as quislings by Lor who resent the conquest, and with simple envy by those who've accepted it.

From here on, I'm going to update only one month per posting, in the vague hope that the real world 'story event' that began in 'our' November 2016 will have 'resolved itself' before I have to post what happens in Earth-Prime's 2016.

June: As described in Rogue's Gallery, a dimensional incursion affects much of southern Ontario and northern New York state. It is responded to by UNISON, particularly its Vanguard teams, with AEGIS assisting in the affected American regions. Before the matter resolves itself, Luminary, the leader of Vanguard Team A, is apparently lost in action, and a new supervillain, the Oblivion Knight, makes her first appearance. (See Paragons for information about this Vanguard, unconnected to the West Coast-based organization, and Luminary.)

From here on, I'm going to update only one month per posting, in the vague hope that the real world 'story event' that began in 'our' November 2016 will have 'resolved itself' before I have to post what happens in Earth-Prime's 2016.

June: As described in Rogue's Gallery, a dimensional incursion affects much of southern Ontario and northern New York state. It is responded to by UNISON, particularly its Vanguard teams, with AEGIS assisting in the affected American regions. Before the matter resolves itself, Luminary, the leader of Vanguard Team A, is apparently lost in action, and a new supervillain, the Oblivion Knight, makes her first appearance. (See Paragons for information about this Vanguard, unconnected to the West Coast-based organization, and Luminary.)

Hey Davies-thanks for the "call out" to Rogues Gallery, and to one of my villains in particular. It really makes me proud when others find something I wrote/created memorable enough to use in their own campaigns. And as I noted before, you were correct in UNISON being a more appropriate agency than AEGIS as the main force responding to the incursion. Speaking of which, in my own original notes for the Oblivion Knight's background, the invading realm was that of Jarl Oscar Mach, another incarnation of the Knight. Jarl Mach was desperately trying to establish a beachhead on Earth-Prime, as his own realm was being reclaimed from chaos; but his failure displeased Entropy, and so the mantle passed to another "chosen" champion, Amanthi Abesuriya.

I do hope you've found the latest tome of villains an entertaining read; I very much enjoy your World of Freedom updates. All my best

Hey Davies-thanks for the "call out" to Rogues Gallery, and to one of my villains in particular.

You're welcome, and expect to see more of the Knight in future updates as I explore how she went from the person she was at the end of her origin to the person she is in her character sheet while trying to Terminiform Earth-Prime.

Hey Davies-thanks for the "call out" to Rogues Gallery, and to one of my villains in particular.

You're welcome, and expect to see more of the Knight in future updates as I explore how she went from the person she was at the end of her origin to the person she is in her character sheet while trying to Terminiform Earth-Prime.

I like that word you just coined-Termiform! Hope you found some of the other villains in the book of interest as well.

The following timeline is an attempt to take the four major sources of information about Bogatyr -- Freedom League Encyclopedia, Golden Age, The Atlas of Earth-Prime and Rogues Gallery -- and reconcile them with my own usage of the character in the Project Freedom campaign, as well as my writings about Protonik, hopefully producing something that makes some sense. Especial thanks to greycrusader for finally giving the man at least part of a civilian name.

1918 -- Ivan Evgenovitch Blagorodnyy is born in Moscow, the child of two veterans of the Oktober Revolution.

1941 -- July: Corporal Blagorodnyy of the 19th Army, 25th Rifle Corps, finds himself separated from his unit, and stumbles onto an ancient hammer in a graveyard in Vitebsk. Grasping the hammer's shaft, he is filled with strength and power beyond his imagination. A loyal Soviet, he attempts to turn over the hammer to Commissar Sheklanov, only to discover that it will only work for him. Unwilling to take the chance that killing Blagorodnny will not allow the hammer to be used by someone else, the Commissar orders him to bear it under the code name Bogatyr, under the hopes that he will be able to match the Nazi Ubermenschen.

1941 -- August: Bogatyr has his first conflict with Ubermensch, a draw that ultimately costs the lives of many of the Soviets Bogatyr is trying to protect. It is a costly lesson, but he begins to fight smarter.

1945 -- Surviving just about everything that the Eastern Front can throw at him, Bogatyr is part of the attack on Berlin, where his attempt to bring matters to a conclusion with Ubermensch is thwarted when the latter flees after the Centurion bloodies the German's nose. This is the beginning of a long-standing rivalry between Bogatyr and the Centurion. With the end of the war, Comrade Blagorodnyy is declared a Hero of the Soviet Union.

1946 -- Serious scientific inquiry into the how and why of Bogatyr's powers begins, under the direction of Trofim Lysenko. The official verdict at this time is that the hammer is a focus for Blagoroddny's psychoenergetic powers, which he naturally possesses as an example of the New Soviet Man. Comrade Blagoroddny is encouraged to marry and produce more examples of the New Soviet Man through his offspring.

1947 -- First child of Blagoroddny is a monster who dies at birth. This is attributed to poisons given to Comrade Blagorodnny's wife by Western saboteurs. Similar explanations are given for the stillbirths and monstrosities that ensue over the next several years, as well as the death of his first wife.

1956 -- A seemingly normal child is born to Comrade Blagorodnny and his second wife, clearly as a result of the excellent security provided by the KGB. However, an anomaly is detected in that the child demonstrates no immediate reaction to the touch of the hammer. Clearly, the abilities of the New Soviet Man will only develop at a later point in the child's development. He is named Petr Ivanov Blagoroddny

1965 -- Trofim Lysenko is disgraced following the downfall of Nikita Khrushchev. A more serious scientific inquiry into the how and why of Bogatyr's powers begins.

1970 -- Using genetic engineering techniques stolen from (in fact leaked by) the Labyrinth, a second, female child of Bogatyr is created in a laboratory. She also demonstrates no ability to bond with the hammer, but the cutting edge techniques involved in her conception lead the scientists to believe that she has a greater chance of doing so than Petr Ivanov. She is given the name Zvezda Grazhdanin. Both children are being carefully monitored.

1981 -- A different branch of the science institute creates a portal to Anti-Earth, where they discover that the local version of Bogatyr is the ruler of Russia. The decision to create a different champion of the Soviet people is made, resulting in the "discovery" of Protonik. Tragically, Ivan Blagoroddny is murdered, no doubt by enemies of the revolution, in December of this year.

1982 -- In light of recent events, Zvezda is given one final opportunity to bond with the hammer. She fails. The hammer, now thought to be powerless, is given to Petr Ivanov ... and bonds with him, activating powers much like those of his father. He is assigned to serve as Protonik's second-in-command. Petr learns of his 'sister's' condition, and uses his new influence to arrange for her to be adopted by him. Zvezda comes to see him as her true father, especially as it becomes clear that his own children are just as monstrous as the majority of his father's were.

1987 -- A non-monstrous daughter, Evgena Petrovna, is born to Petr Ivanov and one of his mistresses. Even in her cradle, she demonstrates that she possesses superhuman powers like those of Bogatyr without any need for the hammer. Zvezda develops something of a complex from this revelation.

1988 -- Protonik defects. The second Bogatyr is, after some hesitation, given command of the People's Heroes.

1991 -- Zvezda, having become an astronaut in record time, is lost in space following an encounter with a space oddity. Petr Ivanov genuinely mourns her loss, and resolves to see that his other daughter doesn't have to face such risks.

2003 -- Evgena Petrovna declares that she wants to be a superhero, and is informed by her father that no she won't, not while she lives under his roof. She runs away the next day.

2008 -- Horrified by the near-outbreak of superhero civil war that was interrupted by the arrival of refugees from another world, Petr Ivanov announces his retirement. Within moments, Evgena Petrovna declares herself the new Bogatyr. Deeply depressed, Petr doesn't respond to his daughter's declaration and begins living a quiet life after turning the hammer over to the Ministry of Science.

2011 -- Zvezda returns as Eminence, and has the first of several unsatisfactory confrontations with her sister. (Note: Eminence suffers the too-rare-to-be-a-Complication of being Impaired on all checks while fighting Bogatyr. It's not clear whether this is due to her enduring complex about her sister or other factors, such as Evgena's deep belief in the equality of all peoples. Nor is it known if she would suffer something similar while fighting her father.)

2016 -- After many failed attempts to form a new team of Russian 'superheroes' who embrace her ideals, Eminence receives an offer from Eurostar to join their team. She is still considering it as of June 2016.

10. Her favorite musical genre is soul. She wouldn't come out of her room for a week when Amy Winehouse died, and she's thrilled that Rick Astley is making new music on this timeline, too. Least favorite is country.

9. Back on her home timeline, she was frequently babysat by her world's Rachel Baldwin. She intends to repay the favor if this world's Rachel Baldwin ever needs a babysitter, even if this version of her is kind of scary, sometimes.

8. Her favorite literary genre is science fiction. Least favorite is historical fiction, mostly because all the mistakes disturb her.

7. Her world didn't have the Harry Potter books, so she has a weakness for them as well as the movies. (She thought Harry Potter and the Cursed Child was just bad, though.)

6. It didn't have the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy in any format, either, and she's listened to recordings of the programmes many times, now.

5. Her historical area of specialization is not the Roman Empire, it's World War II. She learned Latin because her dad insisted.

4. Out of all the superheroes she's met over the last six years, the one who impressed her the most is Protonik, particularly after she found out what he's been doing out in space all these years. That's not her secret, though, so you'll have to ask him about it.

3. She doesn't quite get magic. It's not that she doesn't believe in it, just that she thinks it's just another superpower. The notion that someone could learn to do magic rituals despite not having any "powers" has never occurred to her.

2. She still has nightmares about her world's Terminus Invasion. She will never let it happen here, or anywhere else if she can prevent it.

1. She's currently really attracted to --

"Hey!"

Um.

"What part of 'that I don't care if you know' was not clear, old chum?"

The following timeline is an attempt to take the four major sources of information about Bogatyr -- Freedom League Encyclopedia, Golden Age, The Atlas of Earth-Prime and Rogues Gallery -- and reconcile them with my own usage of the character in the Project Freedom campaign, as well as my writings about Protonik, hopefully producing something that makes some sense. Especial thanks to greycrusader for finally giving the man at least part of a civilian name.

1918 -- Ivan Evgenovitch Blagorodnyy is born in Moscow, the child of two veterans of the Oktober Revolution.

1941 -- July: Corporal Blagorodnyy of the 19th Army, 25th Rifle Corps, finds himself separated from his unit, and stumbles onto an ancient hammer in a graveyard in Vitebsk. Grasping the hammer's shaft, he is filled with strength and power beyond his imagination. A loyal Soviet, he attempts to turn over the hammer to Commissar Sheklanov, only to discover that it will only work for him. Unwilling to take the chance that killing Blagorodnny will not allow the hammer to be used by someone else, the Commissar orders him to bear it under the code name Bogatyr, under the hopes that he will be able to match the Nazi Ubermenschen.

1941 -- August: Bogatyr has his first conflict with Ubermensch, a draw that ultimately costs the lives of many of the Soviets Bogatyr is trying to protect. It is a costly lesson, but he begins to fight smarter.

1945 -- Surviving just about everything that the Eastern Front can throw at him, Bogatyr is part of the attack on Berlin, where his attempt to bring matters to a conclusion with Ubermensch is thwarted when the latter flees after the Centurion bloodies the German's nose. This is the beginning of a long-standing rivalry between Bogatyr and the Centurion. With the end of the war, Comrade Blagorodnyy is declared a Hero of the Soviet Union.

1946 -- Serious scientific inquiry into the how and why of Bogatyr's powers begins, under the direction of Trofim Lysenko. The official verdict at this time is that the hammer is a focus for Blagoroddny's psychoenergetic powers, which he naturally possesses as an example of the New Soviet Man. Comrade Blagoroddny is encouraged to marry and produce more examples of the New Soviet Man through his offspring.

1947 -- First child of Blagoroddny is a monster who dies at birth. This is attributed to poisons given to Comrade Blagorodnny's wife by Western saboteurs. Similar explanations are given for the stillbirths and monstrosities that ensue over the next several years, as well as the death of his first wife.

1956 -- A seemingly normal child is born to Comrade Blagorodnny and his second wife, clearly as a result of the excellent security provided by the KGB. However, an anomaly is detected in that the child demonstrates no immediate reaction to the touch of the hammer. Clearly, the abilities of the New Soviet Man will only develop at a later point in the child's development. He is named Petr Ivanov Blagoroddny

1965 -- Trofim Lysenko is disgraced following the downfall of Nikita Khrushchev. A more serious scientific inquiry into the how and why of Bogatyr's powers begins.

1970 -- Using genetic engineering techniques stolen from (in fact leaked by) the Labyrinth, a second, female child of Bogatyr is created in a laboratory. She also demonstrates no ability to bond with the hammer, but the cutting edge techniques involved in her conception lead the scientists to believe that she has a greater chance of doing so than Petr Ivanov. She is given the name Zvezda Grazhdanin. Both children are being carefully monitored.

1981 -- A different branch of the science institute creates a portal to Anti-Earth, where they discover that the local version of Bogatyr is the ruler of Russia. The decision to create a different champion of the Soviet people is made, resulting in the "discovery" of Protonik. Tragically, Ivan Blagoroddny is murdered, no doubt by enemies of the revolution, in December of this year.

1982 -- In light of recent events, Zvezda is given one final opportunity to bond with the hammer. She fails. The hammer, now thought to be powerless, is given to Petr Ivanov ... and bonds with him, activating powers much like those of his father. He is assigned to serve as Protonik's second-in-command. Petr learns of his 'sister's' condition, and uses his new influence to arrange for her to be adopted by him. Zvezda comes to see him as her true father, especially as it becomes clear that his own children are just as monstrous as the majority of his father's were.

1987 -- A non-monstrous daughter, Evgena Petrovna, is born to Petr Ivanov and one of his mistresses. Even in her cradle, she demonstrates that she possesses superhuman powers like those of Bogatyr without any need for the hammer. Zvezda develops something of a complex from this revelation.

1988 -- Protonik defects. The second Bogatyr is, after some hesitation, given command of the People's Heroes.

1991 -- Zvezda, having become an astronaut in record time, is lost in space following an encounter with a space oddity. Petr Ivanov genuinely mourns her loss, and resolves to see that his other daughter doesn't have to face such risks.

2003 -- Evgena Petrovna declares that she wants to be a superhero, and is informed by her father that no she won't, not while she lives under his roof. She runs away the next day.

2008 -- Horrified by the near-outbreak of superhero civil war that was interrupted by the arrival of refugees from another world, Petr Ivanov announces his retirement. Within moments, Evgena Petrovna declares herself the new Bogatyr. Deeply depressed, Petr doesn't respond to his daughter's declaration and begins living a quiet life after turning the hammer over to the Ministry of Science.

2011 -- Zvezda returns as Eminence, and has the first of several unsatisfactory confrontations with her sister. (Note: Eminence suffers the too-rare-to-be-a-Complication of being Impaired on all checks while fighting Bogatyr. It's not clear whether this is due to her enduring complex about her sister or other factors, such as Evgena's deep belief in the equality of all peoples. Nor is it known if she would suffer something similar while fighting her father.)

2016 -- After many failed attempts to form a new team of Russian 'superheroes' who embrace her ideals, Eminence receives an offer from Eurostar to join their team. She is still considering it as of June 2016.

Very elegant blending of the detailed accounts of the Bogatyrs from Atlas of Earth-Prime and my own Eminence/Zvezda Blagorodnyy from Rogues Gallery with the contradictory accounts from earlier, less sketched out sources from GR.

My own take on the the Soviets' frustrations in the original Bogatyr's inability to spawn super-powered children is poor Ivan's fertility problems stemmed from BEFORE his abilities activated when he stumbled across the ancient hammer-which was actually a damaged Hierarchy weapon, with an only partially functioning AI-as the senior Blagorodnyy grew up in a filthy, befouled 5-year plan city. In fact, the regenerative properties granted by the hammer were the ONLY reason he was able to have offspring at all. Ideologically driven pseudoscience made the situation worse, resulting in the numerous deaths in childbirth of the surrogates and horrific mutations.

Petr was conceived when Ivan and his more robust second wife Olga ditched their KGB detail during their honeymoon and engaged in relations without the "benefit" of Lysenko's noxious elixirs. They were exceptionally fortunate, as the couple was not able to conceive again even when they managed to steal away on occasion.

The reason Peter didn't bond with the hammer when first exposed to it is because very few pre-adolescent children possess the necessary cognitive tools; the potential was always present. Zvezda would have bonded as well save she has never handled the weapon as an adult.

Evenga was almost as much a product of the leaked Labyrinth process as her "big sister", as the Mistress was pre-selected for her own latent paranormal potential, and dosed with a cocktail of genetically tailored fertility drugs and DNAscendant serum. She was just born from a womb rather than a breeding matrix.

Very elegant blending of the detailed accounts of the Bogatyrs from Atlas of Earth-Prime and my own Eminence/Zvezda Blagorodnyy from Rogues Gallery with the contradictory accounts from earlier, less sketched out sources from GR.

Honestly, if not for the single reference to him in Golden Age, which has his first appearance in 1941, I'd have preferred to have him discover the hammer while the Russians were invading Berlin, so he really was more about the Cold War then World War II as later writings suggested.

My own take on the the Soviets' frustrations in the original Bogatyr's inability to spawn super-powered children is poor Ivan's fertility problems stemmed from BEFORE his abilities activated when he stumbled across the ancient hammer-which was actually a damaged Hierarchy weapon, with an only partially functioning AI-as the senior Blagorodnyy grew up in a filthy, befouled 5-year plan city. In fact, the regenerative properties granted by the hammer were the ONLY reason he was able to have offspring at all. Ideologically driven pseudoscience made the situation worse, resulting in the numerous deaths in childbirth of the surrogates and horrific mutations.

Petr was conceived when Ivan and his more robust second wife Olga ditched their KGB detail during their honeymoon and engaged in relations without the "benefit" of Lysenko's noxious elixirs. They were exceptionally fortunate, as the couple was not able to conceive again even when they managed to steal away on occasion.

The reason Peter didn't bond with the hammer when first exposed to it is because very few pre-adolescent children possess the necessary cognitive tools; the potential was always present. Zvezda would have bonded as well save she has never handled the weapon as an adult.

Evenga was almost as much a product of the leaked Labyrinth process as her "big sister", as the Mistress was pre-selected for her own latent paranormal potential, and dosed with a cocktail of genetically tailored fertility drugs and DNAscendant serum. She was just born from a womb rather than a breeding matrix.